


Forget-Me-Not

by CrackingLamb



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, F/M, Keepsakes, Last Chance to Save the Dread Wolf From His Own Idiotic Schemes, Mild References to Past Adult Activity Times, Post-Trespasser, Surprises
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-09
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:02:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23073652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrackingLamb/pseuds/CrackingLamb
Summary: He left her without warning, a thief in the night.And when she finally found him, she knew she had only this single chance to convince him to choose.Destroy the world thatis, or let go of the world thatwas.
Relationships: Female Lavellan/Solas
Comments: 19
Kudos: 37





	Forget-Me-Not

“Package for you, m'lady.” The runner dropped a bundle on Ellisora Lavellan's desk and took off again. More messages to deliver, no doubt. No different than the multitude already covering her workspace. The bundle was rather small, cloth wrapped. Her fingers slid against a hard surface when she touched it. There was nothing out of the ordinary about it, of course, it was just a cloth wrapped box. But still, something trickled down her spine. A sense of foreboding, perhaps. A gut instinct. She'd relied on her instincts too long to ignore them.

 _Dread_.

She watched her own hand pause, icy cold all of a sudden. Why would she think that word?

“Inquisitor,” Cassandra's voice carried up the stone. “Have you a moment?”

She left the package unopened and went to see what the Seeker needed. Corypheus may have been defeated, but chaos reigned across Orlais and the Inquisition's influence was yet required. She forgot about the box as she went about her duties, too many to name and all of them nothing more than a stop gap to keep her busy. She assigned the last of Cullen's men to their locations, scouting always for remnants of their enemies. She sent the others to their homes, at long last. Leliana – Divine Victoria – sent her reports through the spies she still commanded, but nothing was in them. Nothing of note.

He'd dropped off the face of the earth, vanished as if he'd never been. Only her memories held him now.

The Anchor pained her, woke her at night. It was on such a night that she finally remembered the package, still sitting on her desk. She wouldn't sleep again, not with the throbbing, glowing mass eating halfway up her arm. She went to her desk, lit a single candle there and untied the cloth.

The box was of elven make, although nothing she recognized other than the craftsmanship. Six blood red garnets winked from the top of it, staggered like eyes. Natural whorls in the wood were cunningly shaped to make the face of a wolf. She lifted the lid and felt the world crash around her.

How many times had she seen it, draped gracefully around his chest, swinging idly as he moved? How many times had she grabbed him by it, pulling him close when they were alone? How many times had it hung from the bedpost after it hit her in the face once too often? Snuggled against him in the afterglow she'd look at the necklace and wonder what made him choose it, what made him wear it. She'd never worked up the courage to ask.

The jawbone was nestled against pale velvet in the box, stark and cold. Twined underneath it were dried flowers, their color faded, but their shape remaining true. Forget-me-nots. There was no note, but she didn't need one. Wherever he'd gone, he didn't need it anymore. And so he'd sent it to her, a reminder, perhaps. A keepsake. A token souvenir to add to the ones she already had.

 _Forget me not_.

Long after the candle burned out, she was still sitting at her desk, the jawbone in her hand.

***

Ellisora walked in his footsteps, uncounted years after him. She stepped through his mirrors, unraveled his riddles, solved his puzzle. And the jawbone clacked against her armor. The Qunari taunted and threatened, but she already knew the identity of their quarry. She wasn't sure if she wanted to get to him first or let them try him. She had no doubt that he would prevail. He was as a living god, wasn't he?

It rattled the brain, made her bones turn to water, thinking of that. She had lain with a god. Unknowing, unthinking. So many secrets between them. She could not curse him for secrets when she had plenty of her own.

She followed the Qunari through the Eluvian.

The field of statues was startling, and yet not surprising. She was beyond surprise now, after all she had learned. Her bare face no longer shamed her.

Voices, low, menacing.

His.

She ran, alternately eager to finally see him and worried that she was too late. Someone had survived for him to be speaking still. She gained the top of the stairs and saw Viddasala turn to stone, just as all her warriors had. He was not even facing her, and he walked without hurry, without concern. Ellisora stepped into the shallow water that pooled around them with a murmuring splash and he stopped, his back to her. Waiting.

“Solas.”

He turned, so slow, so...forlorn. His eyes stopped at the jawbone just as her arm spasmed and the Anchor shrieked against her nerves, making her fall to her knees and bite her lip against the pain. It was blinding, consuming. It was killing her. She didn't see what he did, but the pain receded. The Anchor fell silent and she could breathe again.

“That should give us more time,” he said. She looked into his face, still familiar after two years, still beloved. He stood away from her, his hands behind his back, wary of her intent and trying to hide it. Not daring to touch, since he had voluntarily forsaken the privilege. She wondered then, would he turn her to stone too if she attacked? “I suspect you have questions, Ellia.”

She got to her feet and held the jawbone as she tended to do when she was nervous, or afraid. Or lonely. That he would use the diminutive of her name lanced pain into her. She had not expected it. The look on his face told her he hadn't either. “All this time, all these years, the answer was right in front of me. _You're_ Fen'Harel.”

“Well done,” he said, approving. And yet...sad.

“Why didn't you tell me? Did you think I would turn you away? Shut you out of my heart?” He was taken aback; he hadn't anticipated she would so easily accept his true nature. It drove the stake of heartache deeper. Had he never truly known her? Trusted her?

“Ir abelas, vhenan.”

No, he would not escape this so easily, with just a few words of contrition. The heartache morphed into something harder. _Harden your heart, make your anger a cutting edge_. She frowned at him, keeping a tight lid on her temper, but unable to stop herself from nonetheless letting him see it.

“Tel-abelas,” she spat at him. He wasn't sorry, not truly. And if she was honest, neither was she. She held the jawbone out to him. “Why did you send me this?”

“I wanted to tell you, but could not.”

“The box. Did you make it? It matches the murals.” It had been the first clue.

The ghost of a smile passed his lips. He nodded once. “Always so clever.”

“What are you planning, Solas?”

“The restoration of my people.”

She thought about what she'd learned, combined with his actions. And the legends. “The orb. It held your power. Lost when Corypheus stole it. Lost again when it shattered.” She held up her hand. “But for this tiny bit.”

“Hardly insignificant, vhenan. The mark you bear would have let me enter the Fade, and bring down the Veil.”

“That would...” He turned his head from her look of horror. “Solas, I never thought of you as someone who would do such a thing.”

He didn't seem to know what to say. “Thank you,” was all that came out.

“You were using us, using the Inquisition. Using _me_!” Horror returned to anger, unchecked by logic or rational thought. She rushed him, pounded her fists against his chest, one landing in thick wolf fur, the other slamming against hard metal plate. He captured her hands and held them still, the only sound between them her hitching, sobbing breath. “ _Why_?”

“Long ago, I sought to set my people free from would-be gods. I locked the Evanuris away and put up the Veil. _I_ cut the conscious connection to the Fade. And in so doing, I destroyed the elves. Everything they lost, immortality, the will to fight Tevinter invasion, their lands and culture, language and history...all because of me. I must make it right, Ellia.” He sighed. “I...what we had was real, vhenan. It was not a lie.”

She leaned her head against his chest and let out her tears. He held her, comforted her from the pain he'd struck. The dichotomy should have been maddening, but the sorrow outweighed it. “Only the rest of it was.”

“And now you know,” he said. “What is the old Dalish curse? May the Dread Wolf take you.”

_And so he did. So much more than he knows._

“Solas, you mustn't destroy this world. It has value and worth. I can prove it to you.” She had to tell him, give him the knowledge to know fully what he was choosing.

“I would treasure the chance to be wrong. But I must do this.”

“Solas, I beg you, I need you to come with me.”

“I cannot do that, vhenan. Too long I have put off this journey. You carry the last piece.”

“The Anchor.” She felt him nod against the top of her head. She pulled back, looked up into the eyes that haunted her. She saw them still, in her dreams. In her waking hours. Desperation sank its hooks into her. “Please. Before you take it back. Give me your trust this one time. I will never ask anything of you again, but this. Come with me.”

“Vhenan...”

“Please.”

***

He followed her out of the Eluvian and into a forest glade. Getting him from his hidden place to her own had been no trouble, and they met no one. She had long guarded her secret this way, hidden her clan here when the shemlen tried to take them from her once the Inquisition was in question by the Exalted Council. Morrigan had helped, changing the path from which her mirror once led. From Skyhold, to here. She could see her clan off in the trees, tending fires, quartering the bounty of a hunt. Living.

“Arvensis,” she called.

“Mama?” a small voice called back, unseen at first. The toddling girl ran to her from an aravel, and Ellisora swept her into her arms while the child giggled.

And Solas froze beside her, staring at them both.

Gray blue eyes met his. Sharp boned features, softened only slightly, mirrored his. The child shifted her focus to the jawbone, held it up to her face, pressed the smooth side of it to her cheek. Ellisora ducked her head as Arvensis pulled it from her to drape around her own neck. It was far too large for her, of course, but it was her favorite reuniting gesture. Once it was in place, she looked at Solas again. “Mama, who dis?”

She turned to him, their daughter in her arms. “This is Solas, Arva. He is...”

“He Daliss like us!”

“No, da'lath, not like us, not Dalish. He is elvhen. You remember, I told you of them. And he is a friend to me.”

She knew her daughter didn't understand, but he did. At least, she hoped he did. She didn't think it was possible for him to grow any more rigid. She would have laughed but for her sudden fear that this would not change anything.

“Arvensis...” he whispered, breaking his long silence. “Forget-me-not.”

“Mama say forget-me-not in my bones.” The girl shook her head, baby fine hair bouncing at her temples in wisps. “Silly Mama, forget-me-not is flowie, not bones.”

Ellisora held out her hand to him, turning the Anchor upright so it sparked in the air. “You can go once you take it. Or you can stay. I said I would not ask anything of you again. You must choose.”

 _Destroy the world that is, or let go of the world that was_.

He took her hand in his, the motion wooden and halting. She relaxed her arm into his touch and he calmed. The mask slipped. It was such a simple way to tell him that she trusted him still, even now in the face of impending doom perpetrated by himself. His eyes flashed, brilliant with light like stars. The pain was searing but quick, fading to a dull ache before passing completely to numb. Sparks remained, burning cold dissolving into nothing. He moved swiftly to hold them both before she fell and dropped Arvensis, their gazes locked together speaking volumes without words.

“I'm sorry, vhenan.” The words could have so many meanings, Ellisora didn't know where to begin to parse them.

“You call Mama 'heart',” Arvensis chortled, paying little attention to the silent interplay between the adults. “You staying? I can show you my flowies.”

He looked lost. Like a tether had broken and he was adrift. She didn't know how to keep him if even this final secret wasn't enough to sway him. She didn't know if she'd want to. She cuddled Arva closer, holding tight to her last remaining joy. The security of his embrace was not enough to soothe the terror in waiting for him to choose. But she could not let her baby know this.

“I don't know if he's staying, da'lath,” she said softly, pulling herself together to stay strong for her child. She had done what she could to reach him. “He is a busy man and has places...”

“I am staying. For now.”

“C'mon,” his daughter urged, tugging at his arm and struggling to get down from her mother's grasp. “I show you flowies.” Ellisora watched them cross the glade to Arva's little patch of garden, Solas matching his long stride to her stumpier ones. “You have fur on you, like wolf. You know jawbone story? Dat wolf too.”

He laughed, and the sound was like rain in the desert. Ellisora's heartache and fear released in a flash that left her breathless. She knew that laugh, equal parts accepting his own defeat and joy. She had heard it once, just once. When she'd gotten through his carefully constructed shell, when he'd given up the pretense of pushing their budding love away. A sense of relief followed the heels of her fading dread. He had chosen.

Then he said, “Tell it to me, da'len.”

**Author's Note:**

> #TheDadWolfRises
> 
> I so wanted to tag it with this, but that would have given the whole thing away.
> 
> Also congratulations to myself, this is my 50th (!!!) published work. 
> 
> Feedback is the lifeblood, and I answer every comment. Cheers!


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